Ogygen Debt

The day that Walter Welzenbach climbs his first mountain marks the rest of his life: he never wants to do anything else. Now he is at his final peak, a dizzying 8188 meters high, looking down at his loneliness.

Fiction
Author
Toine Heijmans
Original title
Zuurstofschuld

Oxygen Debt is the breath-taking novel about the two friends, Lenny and Walter, who chase their dreams in the alps and Himalayans, and seal their fate in doing so. They carry along the stories of the great alpinists that have done the tours before them, and together they search for a way to write a new chapter of mountaineering history. But in the thin air different rules apply.

Ten years after the publication if his renowned bestseller At Sea, Toine Heijmans once again takes the reader along to an unrelenting world, with a novel about freedom and friendship, storms and avalanches, and the consequences of radical choices.

  • Boekhandelsprijs 2022

The ice axe of Heijmans’ sincerity cuts through the clichés and false heroism. On top of that, the scenes in the high mountains are also enormously gripping.

Trouw

A terrific novel about friendship, loneliness, freedom and mountains.

de Volkskrant
Toine Heijmans
Toine Heijmans (b. 1969) is a writer, journalist and columnist. After writing the non-fiction book 'La Vie Vinex' (2007), he made his mark with his debut novel 'Op Zee' (At Sea, 2011) which brought international renown, was made into a movie and made him the first Dutch writer to receive the prestigious French Prix Médicis Étranger. It was followed in 2014 by his second novel, 'Pristina', about a refugee and a government agent tasked with issuing deportation orders. In 2019, 'Marifoonberichten' (Marine Communications), a collection of Heijmans’ best stories about sailing and the sea, was published by Pluim. 2021 saw the publication of 'Zuurstofschuld' (Oxygen Debt), a breathtaking story about the friendship between two climbers. Heijmans lives on the outskirts of Amsterdam, close to his sailing boat, which doubles as his writing studio.
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